Cedarville’s Estepp: Dayton has a ‘top-15 environment’ in college basketball

“We essentially had a sell-out at our place for Moonlight Madness,” said Estepp, who enters his 14th season as head coach with a record of 232-155, “and to be there tonight and in that environment ... I say it all the time, any chance I get, that’s one of the top-15 environments in college basketball. Their fan base is tremendous. It feels like they’re right on top of you, and just to be back in that and not have to wear a mask when you’re coaching and playing, it definitely felt like it was back tonight. That was a lot of fun.”

Estepp had fun despite being on the wrong end of a 94-60 score. His team’s shooting struggles played the biggest part in Dayton’s lopsided victory.

Last season, Cedarville shot 34.7 percent from 3-point range last season and made 10 or more 3-pointers six times in 21 games. They have everyone back for the 2021-22 season and likely will be as good, if not better, from long range.

That wasn’t the case Monday. The Yellow Jackets missed all 15 of their 3-point attempts in the first half and shot 15.6 percent in the game (5 of 32).

Nothing foreshadowed those type of struggles. Estepp said his team shot well against Indiana Wesleyan in a scrimmage last week and has shot the ball well in practice.

“It could just be first time under the lights and a really big crowd,” Estepp said, “and we’re not as used to playing in arenas. We were (at UD Arena) last night. We shot fine. I wouldn’t say we were necessarily on fire yesterday. I think it could just be a combination of all that. I thought we had really good looks. We just could not get them to go down. Sometimes missing shots can be contagious. You’ve got to have really tough-minded kids for that not to happen. And I think we do. But I think that was a lesson for them.”

Dayton’s 34-point victory came one day short of two years after it beat Cedarville by almost the same score, 93-60, in an exhibition game. Cedarville made 6 of 18 3-pointers in that game.

Asked how much Dayton’s length — the Flyers started nine players 6-foot-6 or taller, while Cedarville had five players who fit in that category — affected the shooting, Estepp said, “I’m sure it did. I think it’s different when you have a 6-3 guy closing out on you as opposed to 6-0 guys. That changes your shot. I need to watch the video. I could be wrong. But I thought we got pretty open looks. We should have hit 37 to 40 percent.”

Estepp told his team at halftime if it had made six 3-pointers in the first half instead of none, it would have been a completely different game. The Flyers pushed their lead into double digits with a 14-4 run midway through the half and led 48-26 at halftime.

“That was probably the biggest frustration for us,” Estepp said. “We just couldn’t get anything to fall, and then it kind of snowballed. I think (Dayton has) got chance to have a really good team, but you can’t be in transition defense all night because you can’t make a shot.”

Jayvon Maughmer, a sophomore forward from Chillicothe, led Cedarville with 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Quinton Green, a 6-7 guard from Columbus, scored 12. Senior guard Branden Maughmer, Jayvon’s older brother, scored 10.

“I thought we had some guys give us some good minutes off the bench,” Estepp said. “Some of those things were things we thought we knew, but they got more solidified tonight. I thought Jacob Drees, who’s really been probably one of our more impactful players in practice, and Jayvon Maughmer, those two guys played really well tonight. I thought they did a lot of good things in there. Sometimes Brandon has been our leading scorer, but I thought tonight he really found guys, especially on the backside, when he was driving. He kicked the ball across the floor and made some really nice passes. We just couldn’t make (the shots). That’s one of the big things for him. I think the more he sees the floor, the easier he’s going to make his own life offensively.”

The star of the game for Dayton was Toumani Camara, who scored 20 points on 8-of-14 shooting in his first game in front of Dayton fans. The feeling entering the season for fans who follow the Flyers was Camara had a chance to be the team’s best players. He lived up to that hype against Cedarville.

“I think he’s a matchup problem,” Estepp said, “with his size and his ability to shoot it. He puts it on the floor. He’s physical when he drives. We’re not Atlantic 10 sized, but we’re not necessarily small, especially for a Division II team. We didn’t have a good matchup for him all night. He’s a bit of a Swiss Army knife. They can kind of bounce him around at the three or the four playing at different spots.”